


Goodness is Going With You

by Britomart_heart



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, F/M, Fluff, Keeping it pg guys I'm sorry, Romance, Slow Burn, obligatory Zombie Apocalypse au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:27:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28370877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Britomart_heart/pseuds/Britomart_heart
Summary: It's a rough galaxy out there when a zombie plague destroys everything it touches. The Mandalorian picks up a girl to look after his kid while he tries to find a safe corner in the universe.
Relationships: Din Djarin/Reader, Din Djarin/You
Comments: 7
Kudos: 13





	Goodness is Going With You

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all! First time posting in a while- My target audience for this is approximately one person - ie myself who still likes zombie apocalypse aus, but let me know your thoughts and if you’d like more!

You had been walking for days. Your small, ancient, ship had broken down on this back water planet, and even you had to admit there was no fixing it this time. But with the galaxy the way it was now, staying in one place was never an option for long.

It had also been days since you’d seen one of them. The creatures that had brought your world crashing to its knees more than twenty years ago. Just with the mere thought of them, your fingers brushed over your blaster strapped to your hip. The road had been too quiet for your liking, and it usually meant that the creatures had all moved to the same spot for whatever reason. That would make it easier for you to avoid them. It would also make it harder for you to outrun them if you did stumble across them.

You reloaded your blaster.

The virus was almost always deadly, and had taken sixty percent of the population of each system it passed through to prove it, but when a host was unfortunate enough to survive the initial sickness, it left them mindless, violent, and hungry for whatever flesh it came across. The accepted story was that the virus was biochemical warfare invented by the scientists of the Empire, meant to wipe out the last supporters of the Old Republic, but was more successful that they ever imagined. Now all that was left was barren planets controlled by warlords, travel systems overrun by pirates, and abandoned cities crawling with the creatures who prowled the empty streets hungrily.

Come to mention it, you were quite hungry too.

A map you found in a crumbling building had indicated that there was some sort of village north of where your ship had crashed, and you had been trekking across the desert sands in hope of some sort of meal, and maybe even an old piece of junk you could wrangle into flying condition. There was talk of a vaccine in the inner rim. A safe zone. It was an idea you could barely comprehend, but the whisper was enough to make you desperate to try and reach it.

As you began to daydream of what a safe zone might entail, you heard a cry in the distance, followed quickly by the warbled shrieks of the infected. Your stomach flipped, head snapping to attention. Normally such a cry would have you running in the opposite direction, but despite every instinct you had, your feet began moving towards the fray. That was the cry of an infant, of a child. Maker help you, but who would be heartless enough to turn away from that?

The noise seemed to come from impossibly far away, but you managed to find an abandoned moisture farm, and a hoard of infected swarming around the strangest looking kid you’d ever seen. Green ears nearly as wide as it was tall, it was crying out in distress as the creatures surrounded it. You’d never seen them attack like this before.

They surrounded the kid in a circle, and one by one they would try to attack with the usual sweep of their rotting arms. As one would rush in, the kid would raise a shaking three fingered hand, closing its eyes in concentration, and the creature would be flung back as if it was a rag doll. You stared in confusion, but quickly realised the child was slowing down, its eyes drooping lower and lower with each attack. You had your blaster raised without thinking and took down three of the creatures before they even noticed you there.

You slid through the gap you created and picked up the child just as it sleepily raised its arms up to you. Tucking him into the crook of your arm, you began firing shots as well as you could, swinging around, and ignoring the inevitable realisation that there was just too many of them. If you could just get out of their view there was a chance you could run, and you kept jogging backwards, until your back hit a wall.

They’d trapped you in a corner.

“Come on kid, that neat magic trick you pulled earlier would be helpful” you half yelled to the child who was clinging to your side. To his credit, the kid did try to lift his arm again, but the effort seemed to take the last bit of energy he had, and he slumped against you. Your grip was slippery with sweat, and with each beat of your heart, and fire of your blaster you knew it was hopeless. As the hoard closed in, you wiped the sweat from your brow, and the tears from your eyes, raising your blaster up to take out as many of them with you as you could.

You noticed the whistling in the air, before you noticed the tiny speeding bullets blasting into each of the snarling creatures, taking them out one by one. When the wall of them fell, a shining body that seemed solid silver landed in front of you, taking out the remaining monsters as if they were no more than training droids at a shooting range.

You stared in disbelief, clutching the child closer to your side, gaping at the number of infected this stranger had taken out in mere seconds, so stunned that you barely noticed that your saviour had now turned his blaster on you.

“Hand him over.” A deep male voice came through the modulator of the helmet, and he stretched his gloved hand out to you, gesturing towards the sleeping baby in your arms. You held him tighter on instinct.

“Who are you?”

“Listen girl, the only reason you’re still standing is because I saw you protecting him. Hand him to me, and we’ll call it even.”

You’d always been good at reading people, but this was like reading a brick wall. The dark visor hid even the slightest shadow of his eyes, and he stood still as stone, no body language to glean any sort of impression from. He held the blaster, still aimed at you, as if it were simply an extension of his arm.

But there was the slightest edge of desperation to his voice, just the tiniest hint of worry when he reached for the kid, that despite yourself you believed him. You wanted to believe him.

Slowly, you stepped over the corpse of one of the infected littering the ground and handed the kid over to the armoured man.

No, not just a man you realised, slightly later than you probably should have. He was a Mandalorian. You nearly dropped your own blaster, as you realised that an actual Mandalorian had pointed his weapon at you, and you actually had the gall to question him and survived.

He tucked the strange brown robe the baby was wearing tighter around him, with a tenderness that seemed somehow bizarre and charming at the same time.

“Why was he alone?” You asked, and the Mandalorian looked at you as if he had forgotten you were there.

“I was fighting a quarry into my ship, and the kid wandered off. He has a habit of doing that… usually I catch him before he gets into real trouble. After that, hopefully he won’t do it again.” He looks back at you, and somehow you knew he was looking over you from top to bottom. You shiver, and you know it’s not from the evening’s chill.

“I don’t have any credits.” He said, and you looked back in confusion.

“Credits?”

“To thank you. For saving the kid. Not many would have done that.”

“Oh don’t worry about it, anyone would have-“ You begin, but he shakes his head

“No. They wouldn’t have.” He tilts his head almost questioningly at you, and for some unknown reason you blush. Why are you blushing. You saved this guy’s kid, he’s thanking you, this is normal. All of this is normal.

“Well. I’d best be on my way then. Keep that kid out of trouble, he seems… special.” You answer, as diplomatically as you can.

“Yeah, he is.” The Mandalorian answers quietly, and you smile and start walking away. You’re nearly out of earshot, when the same modulated voice calls out again.

“Hey. Can I give you a lift somewhere. I’m not a taxi service but… I’m headed towards Nevarro and I can drop you there, or somewhere on the way.”

“Yes”, You say without thinking and without questioning the relief that threatens to spill over, “Yes, Nevarro would be great, thank you.”

He barely says a word after that, leading you nearby to his ship, and sets up a make shift bed for you on the ground of his rather shaken looking pre-empire Razor Crest. The kid stirs sometime after you enter hyperspace and gives you a toothy grin when he sees you sitting beside his floating crib. He reaches over to you with a tiny, green, wrinkled hand, and wraps it around your pointer finger.

“Hi kid, it’s me again”, you say and give him your name. He stares up at you with his enormous black eyes, and his calm gaze settles you enough that you allow the exhaustion of the past days to finally wash over you.

****

Over the next few days he tells you barely enough to satisfy your curiosity, but enough that your sufficiently intimidated by him. You can call him Mando, he doesn’t know the kid’s name, there’s rations in the hold that you can help yourself to whenever you want. You fill in the gaps you can with your limited knowledge of Mandalorians- that their religion is their armour and weapons, that their planet was lost before the virus destroyed everyone else’s, that the helmet never comes off.

It’s enough that your intrigued by him almost as much as you’re scared of him. His voice alone, warm and low, draws you in, and the affection he clearly has for the strange child that travels with him, is a walking contradiction to the Mandalorian code you heard about in stories and legends as a youngling. It makes you wonder if he travels with the kid out of obligation, or if he once was as lonely as you are, and couldn’t bare it anymore.

You can understand that.

You come out of hyperspace on the third day, and you hear him coming down the ladder into the hold before you feel the jolt of the ship entering Nevarro’s atmosphere. You have the kid on your lap, and were in the process of teaching him one of the few games you remember from your own childhood. He didn’t seem to get the rules, but giggled every time you clapped his hands together, and would try to do the same with yours.

“The kid likes you”. Mando says from behind you, and you smile over your shoulder.

“Well I’m easy to like. So is this little one.” You answer, and the kid gurgles in what sounds like agreement, and throws himself forward into you, stretching his tiny arms as far as he can reach, and laughs into your belly.

Mando walks forward, and gently tugs on one of the kid’s massive ears. You’re not sure if you imagine his fingers brushing over your shoulder when he moves his hand back.

“You’re handy with a blaster.” He says, in a way that feels more like a statement than a question. You’re not sure where he’s going with this, but you nod slowly.

“When I need to be.”

“You can handle moving around from place to place? You don’t have anyone waiting for you somewhere?” He asks, and it’s definitely a question this time. You nod more confidently, and turn around full to look up at him. He’s leaning against a wall, his arm resting confidently on his hip, and he’s literally in full armour, why is that a good look on him. You’re beginning to wonder if there’s something wrong with you. Maybe you’ve been alone for too long.

“It’s just been me for a long time.”

He nods in a way that makes you think it was the right answer.

“I’m trying to get into the inner rim. There’s some rumours that it’s safer there, and I need to get the kid… he needs to be safe.” He says slowly, as if he’s choosing his words carefully. Still can’t trust you with the full truth, but is offering up more than you ever expected. You try not to look too eager.

“I need someone to watch the kid while I collect my bounties on the way. You saw what happens when he’s left alone for too long. And I think you need to get somewhere safe too.”

You barely react, terrified that if you say something now, he’ll retract whatever offer he is about to make, the one you were always on the verge of suggesting yourself but kept losing the nerve to ask.

“I still need to stop in Nevarro. But you can join me when I leave again… if you want. I can pay handsomely, and it’ll be safer than travelling on your own.” He says, and you know he’s waiting for an answer now. You stand slowly, trying to look as if you’re contemplating a response, even though you know your answer immediately. You place the kid in his floating crib and wipe your hands on the front of your trousers.

“It’s a deal.” You answer and stretch one of your hands out in front of you.

There’s a few seconds of complete silence, only the unreadable man in front of you, staring at your outstretched hand, and oh maker have you misread this completely. You’re about to drop your hand, when he reaches out and shakes it with his own and seems to hold it a beat to long before letting go.

“Right, well then strap the kid in, we’ll be pulling into Nevarro shortly.” He answers as gruffly as if the conversation never happened and turns to climb back up into the cockpit. As if you imagined the whole thing.

Only, even though you have absolutely no proof, if someone asked you to bet on what expression he was making under that helmet, you’d have put money on him smiling.

**Author's Note:**

> britomart-heart.tumblr.com


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